Laila Stevens

Laila Stevens received her B.A. in Studio Arts with a double minor in Chemistry and Asian Studies from Bates College in 2021. After graduating, Laila worked in the Hu Lab at the Tufts University School of Medicine. There, the clinical and laboratory focuses were on Lyme disease, both on the bacteria itself as well as organisms’ biological responses. Laila was part of two industry-funded studies relating to the treatment and prevention of Lyme disease as a research technician and study coordinator.

Patricia Sheehan, BSN, MPH, MS

Patty is an Assistant Professor. She received her BSN from Villanova University, a MPH from Johns Hopkins University followed by a MS in Community Health (Family Nurse Practitioner) from the University of Massachusetts. Patty has organized, directed and completed large multi-center trials for both academia and industry. She enjoys skiing, cooking, running road races, nature and traveling. She plans to climb all 67 New England mountains that are over 4000 feet, and visit every continent.

Paul Fuss

Paul graduated from the University of Michigan, and worked for many years at the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University as a research coordinator and project manager of many studies on the regulation of energy balance. These studies used an array of interesting methodologies that often taxed his knowledge of high school physics (something he points out to his kids whenever they complain about all the “useless stuff” they’re forced to learn). His interests outside of work include collecting and using antique woodworking tools. Paul considers himself an amateur rhykenologist.

Cindy Haviet, M.S.

Cindy received her B.A. in Biology with a minor in Public Health from Regis College in 2013 and her M.S. in Regulatory and Clinical Research Management in May 2016 from Regis College. She began working in the Division of Endocrinology at Tufts Medical Center in November 2014 and is enjoying the opportunity to work on the D2d as part of the Coordinating Center team. Cindy loves anything that involves being outdoors especially hiking and camping. She is also an avid runner with two half marathons and five 5k races completed. She is looking forward to her first marathon in Hawaii this December.

Edith Angellotti, MD

Edith was born in Italy and received her MD at the Second University of Naples (Italy) in 2011. She worked for four years as clinical fellow in Geriatric Medicine at the Second University of Naples (Italy), focusing on the management of patients with type 2 diabetes and cardiometabolic diseases. She moved to Boston in 2016 to join the Dr. Pittas' research group. Currently she is working on research analyses from the DDM2 clinical trial. In her free time, Edith enjoys reading, baking cakes and cooking delicious Italian dishes.

Kim Vo

Kim earned her BA in English Language and Literature from California State University, Sacramento. She started her career as a Certified Pharmacy Technician where her interest in Clinical Research grew. She has worked on many research projects at Tufts Medical Center with the Department of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, before joining the Pittas' team, where she serves as the Lead Coordinator for the D2d study at the Tufts site. In her words, “If I wasn’t doing what I’m currently do now I would love to travel the world and learn to cook the native cuisine as I go along.”

Naweed Alzaman, MD

Dr. Alzaman received his MD from the King Abdulaziz University Medical School at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and completed his internal Medicine residency at Baystate Medical Center (affiliated with Tufts U School of Medicine) and Endocrinology fellowship at Tufts Medical Center, where he stayed for an additional year to conduct clinical research. Following completion of his training in the United States, Dr. Alzaman returned to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where he practices endocrinology and conducts research in rare forms of diabetes, type 1 diabetes, and vitamin D binding protein genotypes in the Saudi population. He also serves as time Assistant Professor of Medicine at Taibah University School of Medicine, which is in the western region of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Naweed and AG collaborated in secondary analyses from two completed trials, which showed for the first time that the relationship between free and total 25(OH)D concentration do not vary systematically by race, which suggests that the clinical assessment of vitamin D status in blacks and whites should follow a single standard.

Idy Tam, MS

Ms. Tam received her BS in Psychobiology from UCLA and her MS in Biomedical Sciences from Tufts U. School of Medicine. On June 2014, Idy joined the team as a research assistant and rapidly advanced to become the lead research coordinator of the Tufts site of the D2d study. Idy optimized study processes, maximized efficiencies and built meaningful relationships with D2d participants, which led to the Tufts site exceeding its original goals of participant recruitment and maintaining outstanding retention of participants. Her efforts in D2d were recognized at the national level when the D2d executive committee made her the recipient of the D2d True Blue award, which is given to a D2d study staff who demonstrates productivity, creativity, dedication and enthusiasm and serves as an ambassador of study at the local and national level. In 2016, Idy enrolled at Tufts U. School of Medicine to continue her career trajectory.

Yan Chu

Ms. Tam received her BS in Psychobiology from UCLA and her MS in Biomedical Sciences from Tufts U. School of Medicine. On June 2014, Idy joined the team as a research assistant and rapidly advanced to become the lead research coordinator of the Tufts site of the D2d study. Idy optimized study processes, maximized efficiencies and built meaningful relationships with D2d participants, which led to the Tufts site exceeding its original goals of participant recruitment and maintaining outstanding retention of participants. Her efforts in D2d were recognized at the national level when the D2d executive committee made her the recipient of the D2d True Blue award, which is given to a D2d study staff who demonstrates productivity, creativity, dedication and enthusiasm and serves as an ambassador of study at the local and national level. In 2016, Idy enrolled at Tufts U. School of Medicine to continue her career trajectory.

Saud Alzahrani, MD MS

Joanna Mitri, MD MS

Early in her career Dr. Mitri focused on prevention of cardiometabolic disease and worked with AGP on the CaDDM study, a trial evaluating the effect of vitamin D and calcium supplementation on pancreatic function in adults at risk for diabetes. During her Endocrinology fellowship at Tufts Medical Center, Dr. Mitri was awarded a grant to study the association between vitamin D and metabolic syndrome in the Diabetes Prevention Program. The abstract from this project won the Endocrine Society Outstanding Abstract Award. The positive results from these two studies led to the design and conduct of the D2d study. Concurrently with her clinical fellowship, Dr. Mitri completed a MS degree in Clinical and Translational Science at Tufts University that further enhanced her research skills. Following her fellowship, Dr. Mitri worked for 3 years in an underserved area where she had the opportunity to care for patients with diabetes in a city with the highest rate of obesity in the state. Dr. Mitri joined Joslin Diabetes Center (Boston, MA) in 2015 where she remains clinically active with a special focus in lipid disorders, and serves as an investigator in research projects, including one that studies the metabolic pathways of increased cardiovascular risk in type 2 diabetes and another on the effects of dairy products consumption on body weight and cardiovascular risk factors in patients with type 2 diabetes. In accord with her developing interest in health care delivery, Dr. Mitri has joined the Innovation Department at Joslin to work on fostering health system alliances in care and education delivery.